Russian sub commander who posted workout route on app shot dead on morning run

A Russian submarine commander, who is alleged by some in Ukraine to have killed more than 20 civilians, has been shot dead on his morning run after logging his route regularly on the fitness app Strava.

A 64-year-old man has been arrested in south Russia over the shooting death of ‌Stanislav Rzhitsky, 42, who was found dead, having been repeatedly shot in the city of Krasnodar on July 10.

Russian submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsky was shot dead while on his morning run on July 10.

Rzhitsky was attacked near the city’s Olimp sports complex, where he often followed the same four mile (6.4 kilometres) path and posted his runs publicly on Strava, according to the Russian online news outlets.

‌The Telegram channel Baza, which has links to Russian security services, claimed this may have made him a target because the “killer could track his route” through the wooded parkland on the running app.

“Largely thanks to this, it would not have been difficult for the killer to choose a convenient point for his reprisal,” the channel posted.

At the time of his death, Rzhitsky was deputy head of military mobilisation in the Krasnodar city administration.

The route that Stanislav Rzhitsky regularly ran, posted publicly on his Strava account.Credit: Strava

Sergei Denisenko, 64, was detained on suspicion of shooting Rzhitsky, and was allegedly found in possession of a pistol and silencer, officials say. He was identified in some Russian reports as a native of the Ukrainian city of Sumy.

Ukrainian media reported that Rzhitsky was one of six submarine commanders able to launch long-range missiles that hit the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia in July 2022, killing 23 people and wounding more than 100.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ strategic communications division also said Rzhitsky was involved in carrying out the strike, citing Ukrainian intelligence. In a Telegram post, the division said Rzhitsky was “apparently liquidated by his own (people) for refusing to continue following orders of the command to launch missile attacks on peaceful Ukrainian cities”.

Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s main intelligence directorate, denied any involvement by Kyiv in the attack on Rzhitsky. However, the agency posted details about the killing on its Telegram channel, including the time of the attack, the number of shots fired and local weather conditions.

Accounts of the killing differed. Ukrainian intelligence said Rzhitsky had been shot seven times, while Russian news outlets Baza and Mash reported he had been shot six times.

Rzhitsky was named commander of the submarine Krasnodar in 2016, and took part in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria, Russian media reported.

His address and other personal details had been posted on the Ukrainian website Myrotvorets (“Peacemaker” in English). The site, which acts as an unofficial database of those considered by its users to be enemies of Ukraine, described Rzhitsky in 2022 as a “Russian war criminal”.

Rzhitsky’s family denies he took part in last year’s invasion of Vinnytsia, and told Baza he had resigned from his post in December 2021. They also said Rzhitsky had been included on the Myrotvorets database as early as 2014, when Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula and took over a submarine base there that once was part of Ukraine’s fleet.

AP with staff reporters

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